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ACDI/VOCA, as a subcontractor to TetraTech ARD, will implement the $1.5 million livelihoods component of the Liberia People, Rules and Organizations Supporting the Protection of Ecosystem Resources (PROSPER) program.
Liberia benefits from a nationwide movement providing for the sustainable and beneficial use of its forest resources, among the most treasured in Africa. In the past “blood timber” helped fuel the country’s long-running communal discord, and forest and other natural resources are playing an important role in recovery, community stability and economic growth.
The project will build on earlier programs in Liberia, including the USAID-funded Land Rights and Community Forestry Project and the U.S. Forest Service-funded Liberia Forestry Support Program.
Strengthening Community Forestry and Natural Resource Management in Liberia
PROSPER will continue to help local Liberian communities address forestry and natural resource management issues.
The program will focus on three objectives:
- Expand educational and institutional capacity to improve environmental awareness, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation and environmental compliance
- Improve community-based forest management leading to more sustainable practices and reduced threats to biodiversity in target areas
- Enhance community-based livelihoods derived from sustainable forest-based and agriculture-based enterprises in target areas
Better Livelihoods through Sustainable Agriculture
ACDI/VOCA’s work on the project will focus on the third objective by enhancing livelihoods through improved agriculture and sustainable harvesting of non-timber forest products.
Our staff will use farmer field schools to promote sustainable agriculture practices in the cultivation of upland rice, cassava, vegetables, groundnuts, cowpeas and tree crops. The goals will be to improve crop yields and soil fertility and reduce shifting cultivation, a system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily and then abandoned, often after the soil has lost fertility.
For more information on ACDI/VOCA’s work in Liberia.
Learn more about ACDI/VOCA's work with climate change adaptation and mitigation.
